It's a world of spoilers, as "Downton Abbey" shows

Be forewarned: This is a story about spoilers that contains a potential spoiler.

Lady Sybil (Jessica Brown Findlay) and her husband, Tom Branson (Allen Leech), with their newborn in "Downton Abbey"; shortly after (spoiler alert!) there was a huge story development.

If you're a "Downton Abbey" fan who has not yet watched the episode that aired Sunday night on PBS, please step away from this article.

If you proceed, it's at your own risk …

Why on earth did such a beloved "Downton" character have to depart this world?

In the fifth episode of the show's third season, the death of beautiful, kind, spirited 24-year-old Lady Sybil — from eclampsia, after she'd given birth to a daughter — was tragic and shocking. Or rather, it would have shocked me had I resisted the urge to read what horrified fans in Great Britain had posted online about the episode when it first aired there on Oct. 14.

Yes, we live in a world of spoilers. Nowadays, when news circles the globe in seconds, it's hard to avoid spoilers, even if you want or try to. (OK, I freely admit that I did neither.) You never know when you'll run across one on Facebook, or get an unwanted alert from Twitter or Google News.

For years, Europeans have been dealing with this situation in reverse. They have watched our exported hits like "ER" and "The Sopranos" and "Lost" months after we first saw them, and then tried to tiptoe through a minefield of spoilers.

The difficulty of keeping surprises and secrets under wraps is not new. For years, we've heard about moviemakers and TV producers who have made crew members sign confidentiality agreements, or have filmed or written alternate endings, or have even waged disinformation campaigns — all in an effort to throw people off the track.

But social media have made things so much more difficult. And there's no book of etiquette when it comes to spoilers.

Is it impolite to reveal something in a tweet that people in other countries or time zones do not yet know? Is the burden on those people to not read it? If they go ahead and keep reading it anyway, do they have any right to be angry at the poster?

And the most burning question of all: Is there an expiration date on spoilers? A statute of limitations on being blamed for ruining someone else's viewing experience?

One of my editors still has not forgiven me for the morning in 2000 when, having just watched a preview tape of "Homicide: The Movie," I blurted out, "Yaphet Kotto dies!"

Extreme case

Kotto's Lt. Al "Gee" Giardello was a beloved fixture in the series "Homicide: Life on the Street," but in the follow-up movie designed to tie up loose ends, he got shot, had emergency surgery (during which he was shot again) and ultimately died of an aneurysm.

I'm still not sure what caused my lapse of judgment, for which I am still apologizing and my editor is still ribbing me.

But that kind of spoiler is an extreme case. Most situations fall into a gray area.

DVRs make it possible to view things at our own convenience and on our own schedule, but they've been pretty much killing the communal viewing experience.

So many times I have come into work the morning after watching an episode of a hot show like "Mad Men" when it aired, desperately wanting to discuss it with the fellow fans who sit near me. But invariably, someone calls out, "Shush! I DVR'd that last night and I'm trying to avoid finding out anything about it."

OK, I'll be considerate and move the conversation out of earshot. But what happens if it's a week after the show has aired and the person is still carrying on like that? Is there a date that we can all agree on? Is it two days, a week? A month?

What good is a water-cooler show if you have to convene in a soundproof closet to rehash it?

And then there are DVDs, which make it possible for people to catch up on series that everyone's talking about. But what if they don't want to hear any talk about, say, a show's fifth-season cliffhanger finale, because they are still discovering the second season? Some of us don't really mind knowing what's ahead, while others want to be blissfully unaware of future developments. Back when "24" was on the air, one friend would stick his fingers in his ears if I even started talking about the few seconds of coming attractions for the following week's episode. He never watched them. That's how much he wanted to be surprised.

Waiting for a rerun

Things were so much simpler in the earlier days of television. If you missed all or part of an episode of "Bonanza" on Sunday nights, you'd maybe come into the office the next day and ask, "Did anyone see if Hoss got his new teeth? I fell asleep after the third commercial break." If nobody you knew had watched, you'd probably have to wait until the network aired a rerun, and that could take a while. Back then, there were typically 39 episodes of a series per season, compared to 22 or fewer today.

In the case of "Downton Abbey," today PBS Masterpiece Classic is releasing the U.K. version of the entire third season on DVD, making it that much easier to unearth and disseminate spoilers.

Lady Sybil's passing was reportedly a story line that creator Julian Fellowes wrote after Jessica Brown Findlay, who plays Sybil, asked to leave the show. In a way, I'm glad I knew that her death was coming. If that disturbing scene had hit me out of the blue, I would have been crying even more than the grief-stricken Crawley family. As housekeeper Mrs. Hughes rightly noted, "The sweetest spirit under this roof is gone."

How will life at the abbey go on? This could be a turning point for "Downton."

It may also be a turning point for me. For the rest of the season, I resolve to watch "Downton" as it airs — and try to avoid spoilers. I'll take the news, good and bad, as it comes.

Be forewarned: This is a story about spoilers that contains a potential spoiler.

If you're a "Downton Abbey" fan who has not yet watched the episode that aired Sunday night on PBS, please step away from this article.

If you proceed, it's at your own risk …

Why on earth did such a beloved "Downton" character have to depart this world?

In the fifth episode of the show's third season, the death of beautiful, kind, spirited 24-year-old Lady Sybil — from eclampsia, after she'd given birth to a daughter — was tragic and shocking. Or rather, it would have shocked me had I resisted the urge to read what horrified fans in Great Britain had posted online about the episode when it first aired there on Oct. 14.

Yes, we live in a world of spoilers. Nowadays, when news circles the globe in seconds, it's hard to avoid spoilers, even if you want or try to. (OK, I freely admit that I did neither.) You never know when you'll run across one on Facebook, or get an unwanted alert from Twitter or Google News.

For years, Europeans have been dealing with this situation in reverse. They have watched our exported hits like "ER" and "The Sopranos" and "Lost" months after we first saw them, and then tried to tiptoe through a minefield of spoilers.

The difficulty of keeping surprises and secrets under wraps is not new. For years, we've heard about moviemakers and TV producers who have made crew members sign confidentiality agreements, or have filmed or written alternate endings, or have even waged disinformation campaigns — all in an effort to throw people off the track.

But social media have made things so much more difficult. And there's no book of etiquette when it comes to spoilers.

Is it impolite to reveal something in a tweet that people in other countries or time zones do not yet know? Is the burden on those people to not read it? If they go ahead and keep reading it anyway, do they have any right to be angry at the poster?

And the most burning question of all: Is there an expiration date on spoilers? A statute of limitations on being blamed for ruining someone else's viewing experience?

One of my editors still has not forgiven me for the morning in 2000 when, having just watched a preview tape of "Homicide: The Movie," I blurted out, "Yaphet Kotto dies!"

Extreme case

Kotto's Lt. Al "Gee" Giardello was a beloved fixture in the series "Homicide: Life on the Street," but in the follow-up movie designed to tie up loose ends, he got shot, had emergency surgery (during which he was shot again) and ultimately died of an aneurysm.

I'm still not sure what caused my lapse of judgment, for which I am still apologizing and my editor is still ribbing me.

But that kind of spoiler is an extreme case. Most situations fall into a gray area.

DVRs make it possible to view things at our own convenience and on our own schedule, but they've been pretty much killing the communal viewing experience.

So many times I have come into work the morning after watching an episode of a hot show like "Mad Men" when it aired, desperately wanting to discuss it with the fellow fans who sit near me. But invariably, someone calls out, "Shush! I DVR'd that last night and I'm trying to avoid finding out anything about it."

OK, I'll be considerate and move the conversation out of earshot. But what happens if it's a week after the show has aired and the person is still carrying on like that? Is there a date that we can all agree on? Is it two days, a week? A month?